Hope @work

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” – Woodrow Wilson

Hope is the great motivator in our world. It gives us anticipation and an expectation for some desirable result. President Woodrow Wilson spoke of the spirit of hope in 1913 while addressing a group of college students. His hope was to inspire the next generation to leave the world a better place than they found it.

A few weeks ago, I watched the movie Dunkirk from director Christopher Nolan and I found the presentation of the historical events in the movie deeply moving. The film’s characters reacted to their situation in a variety of ways. Some exhibited a great hope for survival and acted courageously while others felt hopeless and resorted to acts of cowardice and selfishness.

I considered the role hope plays in an office environment:

Workers hope for advancement and it motivates them to go beyond their job description.

Workers hope to close a sale and it inspires them to create solutions that never existed for a customer.

Workers hope to create a new product and it drives them to consider new ways of thinking.

Workers hope for a job in a different field and it inspires them to train and study new skills.

The ability to influence actions is powerful. That’s what hope does. While people have different hopes based on their situation, one thing is the same. All of us are driven to action when we have a strong hope for a different tomorrow. Hope is the great equalizer that can help someone who is less skillful or knowledgeable out-perform a competitor. Where there is hope there is achievement.